Beneath mayor's fanfare lies a sound framework

The Mayor Who Wants to Save the Children pranced onto the stage with Chuck Berry blasting: "Up in the mornin' and out to school / the teacher is teachin' the Golden Rule."

Fireworks exploded. Fog machines pumped ersatz clouds. Well, not really. But such touches wouldn't have surprised me. And the rock was real as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa strolled across a projected map of the world and began reading his polished spiel from a teleprompter, trying not to trip over the props — a dozen schoolchildren.

A few rows from the stage, Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. David Brewer listened quietly as the mayor trotted out "The Schoolhouse: A Framework to Give Every Child in LAUSD An Excellent Education."

Later, the new supe was diplomatic about the mayor's plan. As was school board President Marlene Canter.

But if you think the tug-of-war for control of the schools will simply fade away as the mayor's takeover law founders in court, you weren't paying attention to Schoolhouse-apalooza's secret signs.

As it happens, I had plopped down in that Little Tokyo theater between Steve Barr, the founder of Green Dot public charter schools, and Caprice Young, the former board member who now heads the California Charter Schools Assn.

They seemed very comfortable. For good reason.

Marshall Tuck, who'd been Barr's right-hand revolutionary at Green Dot, is now part of the mayor's education reform team. He helped write the "framework." And, as Young pointed out, most of those dozen kids on stage were charter school students.

I'm a slow learner, though. It wasn't until I talked to school board candidate Johnathan Williams that I put 2 and 2 together and said, "Doh! It's the charters, stupid."

Williams, who founded a charter school in central Los Angeles, is now running against status quo stalwart Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte for one of the four open board seats. He's likely to get at least a tacit endorsement from the mayor for his campaign. And if he and the mayor's other candidates join sympathizer Monica Garcia on the board, Brewer will be all but reporting to City Hall anyway.

One of the most contentious proposals in the school takeover law would give the mayor the chance to run three troubled high schools and all the elementary and middle schools that feed into them. But if the formal takeover fails, as seems increasingly likely, the district could still voluntarily hand the mayor some schools.

Would Williams do that if elected?

"Absolutely."

But that wouldn't really be necessary, he added. Because even if the board continues to reject the mayor's advances, his team could simply work from the outside in and start trying to convert district schools to charters, which, by definition, are free to bend the rules.

I have no doubt that Brewer means it when he says: "The mayor and I are philosophically aligned." And when he says: "That framework was fine with me."

I have no doubt that Canter means it when she says: "I'm absolutely willing to accommodate the mayor's strong interest in running some schools." And when she says (over and over and over): "I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and work with the mayor and anyone else who wants to help us reform…. "

She and Brewer are clearly committed to steadily improving education for the district's 700,000 or so students. They may even be ready to share power with the mayor to make that happen — though I couldn't get Canter to pull the trigger on that.

Me: "Under the right circumstances, would you be willing to let the mayor's team take over one or more clusters of schools for a demonstration project of sorts?"

Canter: "Yes. I'm absolutely willing to consider ways…"

Me: "If we get crunched for space in this column, can I just say you said 'Yes'?"